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Yellow Freight
Yellow Freight is the twelfth short story in the anthology Biggles Flies Again. Unlike the other stories, this one made its first appearance in the anthology. It was subsequently republished in Modern Boy and another book entitled Air Stories. In Flies Again, this story is preceded by The Sheikh and the Greek and followed by The Last Show (Biggles Flies Again). Synopsis Biggles, Algy and Smyth help an ex-R.F.C. colleague whose air transport company has had two catastrophic air crashes. What was common to the two was the freight: gold. Plot (Click on expand to read) Biggles,Algy and Smyth were in Heliopolis, Cairo, on the way back to England after the events of The Sheikh and the Greek when Colonel Grivin asks to see them. Colonel Grivin had served at Wing Headquarters during the time Biggles and Algy had flown with 266 Squadron in France during the First World War. After the war, he ran "The Nile and North Africa Aviation Company" based in Heliopolis. Now, he needs the help of Biggles badly. His company has a big freight contract but he has already experienced two mysterious aircraft crashes which killed his best pilot Trevor Dawlish and another, Bert Makin. Both aircraft came down in the same vicinity around an emergency landing ground named Karouma, and both carried a load of gold which has disappeared. The signs point to sabotage, murder and robbery, but how can the perpertrators have timed the sabotage so well as to ensure that the aircraft will crash at just the right spot? Grivin knows Biggles has a reputation for solving difficult problems and he appeals to him for help. Biggles agrees by flying a load of freight but he makes careful preparations. He inspects his aircraft carefully and then has lead bars packaged as gold loaded on board. Next he goes with Grivin to see the local R.A.F. commander Group Captain Bruton to make arrangements for support. Finally, and perhaps a trifle mysteriously, he sends Algy to town to buy a cage with two white mice. Biggles plans to fly the freight aircraft alone. Algy is to stand by in their own Vickers Vandal. Biggles takes off in the freight aircraft and heads for Benghazi as planned. Nearing Kasouma the white mice in the cage start to collapse. The cockpit is filling with carbon monoxide! But Biggles is prepared. He puts on a gas mask, fakes sone clumsy flying and then lands at Kasouma. In the distance, 2 horsemen dressed as a Arabs are approaching, leading a couple of spare horses. Biggles (who must have hidden the gas mask and mice away) pretends to be unconscious. The horsemen (who speak English) board the aircraft and proceed to load their horses with the boxes of lead. Before departing, they open the throttle of the aircraft so that it will crash and burn against some rocks, Biggles springs up, grabs the controls and takes off safely. He sets off in pursuit of the horsemen while making his report to base by radio. After a two hour pursuit, Biggles is joined by a flight of aircraft--reinforcements from Group Captain Bruton led by Algy and Colonel Grivin in the Vandal. Two Armstrong Whitworth Atlases make machine gun strafing runs which bring the horsemen to a halt. A Vickers Victoria troop carrier then lands to discharge a party of airmen to arrest the bandits. Biggles shows Grivin how the bandits had brought the planes down. It turned out they had piped exhaust gases from the engine into the cockpit. Biggles, Algy and Smyth take off in the Vandal with the real consignment of gold on board, promising to return if their testimony to testify, if necessary, during the trial of the bandits. Characters *Biggles *Algy Lacey *Smyth *Colonel Grivin *Trevor Dawlish *Bert Makin *Group Captain Bruton Aircraft *Vickers Vandal *Armstrong Whitworth Atlas *Vickers Victoria Places Visited *Cairo **Heliopolis Aerodrome *Karouma Mentioned *Mersa Matruh *Benghazi *El Farosha Editorial Changes *The editors missed one! Biggles is still swinging his googles in the first line of the story. In other stories, mentions of goggles had been conscientiously removed to avoid the suggestion that the Vickers Vandal had an open cockpit. *A mechanic addresses Biggles as "Major Bigglesworth". This entire paragraph is dropped. Postwar readers of Biggles knew him as a Squadron Leader. Calling him Major would have confused them. * Then why did the editors leave Grivin's rank as Colonel and not change it to Group Captain? *An entire section where Grivin offers Biggles a drink and then pours himself a stiff whisky is omitted. *Along with the references to alcohol, the editors also removed phrases like "a Hell of a jam" and "devil of a jam". "Good God" becomes "Great Scott". *Karouma is about an hour's run from Heliopolis, just under a hundred miles, Grivin says. In later editions, the part about just under a hundred miles is dropped. One supposes the editors didn't want to show how slow the aircraft were, thus suggesting their vintage. *Joystick changed to control column. *Mentions of the R.A.F. aircraft types, Armstrong Whitworth Atlas and Vickers Victoria, which came to the aid of Biggles, were totally removed. The editors did not replace them with more modern types. One supposes they wanted to leave the timeframe vague. Other Research Notes References to the past *Colonel Griven was at Wing Headquarters during the time Biggles, Algy and Smyth were at 266 Squadron in France. Incongruities Chronology Publication History *''Biggles Flies Again'', August 1934 and subsequent editions *''Modern Boy'', No. 384, 1935 entitled The Plane Wreckers which includes this story and the next one, The Last Show. *Reprinted in Air Stories edited by Flight Lieutenant (W E Johns), Ace Publishing Co., 1938. References Category:Short stories Category:Biggles short stories Category:Interwar era short stories